


The Lighthouse

by sunaddicted



Series: 007 Games Fics 2k20 [21]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Angst and Feels, Canon-Typical Violence, Chronic Pain, Desert Island, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Lighthouses, M/M, Missions Gone Wrong, POV Alternating, Past Torture, Post-Skyfall, Pre-Slash, Raoul Silva is Alive, Slash, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25426711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaddicted/pseuds/sunaddicted
Summary: “You’re alive”“Didn’t I once tell you that life clings to me like a disease, Mr Bond?”
Relationships: James Bond/Raoul Silva | Tiago Rodriguez
Series: 007 Games Fics 2k20 [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794529
Comments: 15
Kudos: 38
Collections: 007 Fest Fancreations





	1. Castaway

**Author's Note:**

> This fills Prompt 91 of the Anonymous Prompt Exchange (2017): Anything with James and Silva involved in a relationship, I'm begging you. Lots of kudos if there's angst involved and slow burn 
> 
> Happy Villain Day!

_Castaway_

It wasn’t the first time James washed up on a beach, half dead and consumed by the sea salt and the harsh sunlight reflecting upon the frothy peaks he had been nobbing amidst - if survived it, it wouldn’t certainly be the last either.

He groaned as he dug his elbows in the sand - so golden that it hurt looking at it, his light blue eyes already irritated enough - and pushed himself out of the water, dragging his own dead weight as far up the beach as he could with what little strength was left in his body, not yet sapped away by the incessant coming and going of the sea that worked at his muscles, making them ache almost more than the injuries scraped all over his flesh.

He might have bled at some point, he vaguely remembered a red splotch spreading somewhere on his right side but if he hadn’t died of blood loss yet, it either meant that it hadn’t been that serious afterall - adrenaline made the blood pump faster and even a flesh wound could bleed all over the place when one’s heart rate was running wild - or that the salt had burnt at the edges of the wound, cauterizing the flesh.

In any case, he was still alive: hypothermia, heat stroke, severe dehydration had all refused to take him and he could still go many days without food if necessary - his odds were looking… well, not good but they were most definitely looking better now that he was out of the water and would get a chance to actually dry up, rest and check on his injuries. The blurred shape of what he supposed to be a lighthouse was promising as well: in the worst case, meaning that the lighthouse would turn out to be the unmanned kind, it meant that at least ships sailed by frequently and that he could attempt at attracting their attention with something shiny - there always was trash in the ocean, no matter how paradisiac the corner of the world he had washed up onto, and while James was by no means a lover or a promoter of pollution, it would come in handy when he looked for something reflective like glass or a piece of aluminium; in the best case, the lighthouse would have a guardian which translated into food, drinkable water and a first aid kit.

Though, maybe it would be better if it turned out he was quite alone: it would just be hard to explain to someone who he was, why was he looking so rugged and trust that they wouldn’t contact the local authorities, spreading around the news that he was alive and making it easier for those who had tried to kill him to find him.

James sighed as he slumped back down on the hot sand, part of him uncomfortable at the way it stuck to his flesh, seemingly getting into every cut and scrape, making them burn as if someone had been sticking fingers in them to purposefully keep the flesh from knitting back together; it was a sensation he knew very well, the kind of torture he could never forget going through. Nobody seemed to realise that, despite his cockiness, what he had had to endure and survive to in the field stayed with him - _always_ ; the horrors just were buried deep enough to allow him to be a functional human being and, most importantly, an agent allowed to take missions and be on active duty when it came to the field.

Rationally, he knew that the minions in Q-Branch were agents just like he was: they just had a different specialisation, the field they fought their battles in was of a different kind but their contributions and efforts were just as important - still, despite of being aware of all that, there wasn’t a worse nightmare for James than being shackled to a desk, forced to push papers and pencils around while some younger kid got his denomination and went out in the world with his code name being whispered in their ear, his Walter encoded to their palm, Q’s scolding directed at them instead of at him.

Q.

James closed his eyes, just thinking about how badly the younger man must have been beating himself up for losing him was tiring - it sapped away at those few energies he had left. He would move on, of course he would - Q was far stronger and pragmatic than anyone gave him credit for but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t hurt and blame himself for not doing more because, as he had learnt in the past couple of years working with the man’s firm commands being fed to him through an earwig, for Q there always was more that he could have pulled out of the hat, like some kind of magic hare.

His eyelids stuck to his dried out eyeballs, he couldn’t have opened them even if he had wanted to - and he didn’t: he just wanted to sleep, for everything to dissolve into the shadows of the unconscious just for a while.

Just until he felt better.

Just until everything stopped hurting.

* * *

Of all the people who could have washed up on his island, it had to be James Goddamned Bond _again_.

Raoul stared down at the man crumpled on the beach, a ruined Oxford lapped up at by the slowly rising ocean. He had climbed down from his lighthouse after spotting a dark and unmoving shape on the shore, curious to see whether it was just another corpse; between piracy, cartels and people foolish enough to take to the sea when drunk, it wasn’t that unusual for the waves to bring him a dead body here and there - Raoul didn’t even bother communicating the discovery to the authorities, nobody really cared about a drunkard or a criminal rotting away at the bottom of the ocean. He’d rifle through their clothes for anything even remotely interesting, fill their pockets with stones and feed them back to the sea they had come from, forever lost to the indomitable hunger of the waves- 

If the body turned out to be still breathing, Raoul usually didn’t do more than setting them up in a cave by the beach with a few medical supplies, fresh water and a plate here and there of food until they were well enough for a speedboat from the main island to come and retrieve them. It definitely was more of an hassle but he had grown used to those situations too and, sometimes, the person that had washed up on his shore was entertaining enough that Raoul didn’t mind them breaking his self-imposed solitary confinement with their presence, ridiculously chatty and grateful if one considered Raoul didn’t even entertain the idea of hosting them in the lighthouse even if there was plenty of space for another person to room in with him.

He had never been the sharing kind and another death and a resurrection later hadn’t changed that: he had radically transformed himself twice already in his life, the first when he had given up the possibility of a normal life to become a Double-Oh and the second when he had been left to rot in a torture chamber on the other side of the world and he had been forced to reinvent himself to avoid going mad - more than enough metamorphoses for a single lifetime, his mold had hardened into something that would never change its shape again.

With all the money he had stashed away here and there around the globe, Raoul could have been anywhere but there right in that moment - as he looked down at Bond’s crumpled body while he wracked his brain about what he could do now, it was the first time ever since landing the job as a lighthouse keeper that he wished he hadn’t.

* * *

Waking up to something soft and comfortable after one’s last memory being that of crashing on a sandy beach wasn’t exactly as comforting as one might have thought it would be; while it meant that he was somewhere relatively safe, warm and where he would presumably find help and assistance, it also was true that one could never know who exactly had done the moving: James could have been at the mercy of an Annie Wilkes for all he knew - and what he knew was that whoever had gone all the effort of picking him up and getting him presumably in the lighthouse, they had also taken his gun.

If there was something James couldn’t stand, it was being disarmed - especially in a situation where he was at an evident disadvantage considering he was still weak, somewhere he didn’t know the layout of, with someone he didn’t know the intentions of; nobody sane would have woken up to those circumstances without wishing for some kind of weapon. As subtly as possible, not wanting his… captor - everyone was an enemy until the contrary could be proven, a tad paranoid as a philosophy of life but it had kept James alive - to realise yet that he had regained consciousness, James tried to feel if he had been laid down to rest in a cot or in a bed and if in the second case, there was a wooden bedframe to speak of that he could try to break to fashion himself some kind of stake.

It wasn’t his favourite way of killing someone - bullets were so much cleaner and efficient - but he didn’t really care about which weapon he used to snuff out a life, as long as he was the one who didn’t end up dead on the ground; it was a mere matter of survival, decades as an agent and the years before in the Navy had made sure that his brain was geared towards it.

“You can open your eyes, you know”

That voice…

That syrupy accent he associated with tanned hands running up his thighs; with fire burning up his childhood home; with M bleeding out on the ground of a long-deconsecrated church…

James would have known it even from the grave, buried deep six feet under with layers upon layers of dirt to muffle his hearing.

“Yes, it’s me”

He turned on his side, ignoring the pain that made his ribcage constrict in a spasm around his lungs, and sat up to try and put himself in a slightly better position to face the other man and, in part, to really look at him in the face to ensure that his brain wasn’t playing any tricks on him - maybe the heat really had hit him hard afterall and together with a lack of water and food, his worst nightmares were being brought to life in the form of vivid hallucinations. However, Raoul Silva looked _alive_ \- changed by life in a way that James could have never imagined; his skin had grown darker, probably because of the increased exposure to sunlight, and the shock of blond hair had faded away, slowly cut off one inch at the time until a glossy brown was left behind.

It was… strange.

James felt like he was looking at a man from the past, not the same one who had tied him up to a chair and suggested he might be intimidated by his first time getting it on with a man; it made him wonder if that was the Tiago Rodriguez that had been firstly relegated to Station H and then abandoned in enemy hands to be eaten alive by the cyanide he had hoped would be his salvation from an endless cycle of torture.

“It’s hard to get blond hair dye out here” 

“You’re alive”

“Didn’t I once tell you that life clings to me like a disease, Mr Bond?”

The nonchalant way the other man leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest as if he wasn’t even thinking about drawing a weapon of his own to defend himself in case James pulled something in an attempt at incapacitating him before getting out of there and, somehow, off of that island, only made James feel more nervous: it was evident that Silva had the upper ground and was aware of it too “How?”

Raoul shrugged “I crawled out of the watery grave you had put me into”

“Like a rat”

“Takes one to know one” Raoul pointed out with a small smile: there was a part of him that was high on the adrenaline flooding his system, excited at the perspective of exchanging barbs with an equal who knew what kind of games he could play - someone he didn’t have to tone himself down for because he already knew the darkness and twistedness of his nature because he had already seen him at his very best; at his worst; at his most deranged “You seem to refuse to die just like I do”

“Maybe I would have died if you had left me on the beach”

“Or maybe you would have stolen into my home with the favour of night and, upon recognising me, you would have slashed my throat in my sleep”

“And why haven’t you done that - the slashing of throats part?”

That was a very good question and, to be honest with himself, one Raoul hadn’t quite found an answer to yet; he just knew that a piece of his old life had washed up at his feet and he had needed to salvage it, even if it only meant putting himself in danger - maybe it was a sign that he had unconsciously grown bored with the quiet and simple life he led now, that he needed something to shake it up. It didn’t sound any smarter of a choice put like that but at least it was an explanation of his impulsive behaviour that Raoul could accept - not that he was going to relay it to Bond: the least he told the man, the fewer his weak spots would be.

So, Raoul just shrugged again and unfolded his arms as he nodded towards the bedside table “I left you some water, you should drink it”

“Where are you going?”

“To fish, obviously”

 _Obviously_.

James’ tired and worried brain struggled to merge together the image of Raoul Silva fishing with that of the man that had used to wear the finest fabrics, his suits exquisite confections of tailoring - but he wasn’t going to protest when it gave him the chance to root around the house in search of a gun.

* * *

Raoul wasn’t really surprised to see Bond stomp - as much as he could stomp in his current physical state - towards him, pervaded with so much nervous energy that he could clearly see it even as the man was still approaching “Didn’t find what you were looking for, hmm?”

“Where is my gun?”

“Who knows?”

James bared his teeth, a frustrated half-hiss leaving his mouth; he didn’t have it in him to appear suave and unperturbed, it wasn’t like Silva didn’t know he felt anything but: there really wasn’t a need to lie, not when the odds were so evidently stacked against him and anyone with eyes could have seen that “Don’t play coy”

“Oh, you would know if I was playing coy - believe me” Raoul handed Bond the fishing rod - it was almost a challenge, a subtle dare for the man to fashion a garotte out of the fishing line and wrap it tight around his throat - while he picked up a sloshing bucket, full to the brim of fish “I hope you like fried sea bass” he said as he turned his back on the man, whistling to the setting sun.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so cheerful.


	2. Shelter

_ Shelter _

It didn’t take James long to realise that getting off of the island wasn’t exactly easy; if Silva had some kind of speedboat, he kept it hidden well enough because he couldn’t find it on any of his explorative trips and the only means of communication with other people seemingly was the satellite phone that the other man always kept on his person, therefore cutting him off completely from the rest of the world.

Weapons were just as hard to come by; James was sure that Silva must have had plenty stashed away but he thought like a spy which meant it was way harder to crack the riddle of their locations open. Instead of wasting energies on finding them, for the moment, James had decided to steal a knife from the small kitchenette the lighthouse was equipped with; it was dulled by years of use and it would make slitting someone’s throat a messy business but it was perfectly fine for plunging it through the ribcage, if he drove it in with enough strength - all in all, better than nothing.

James sat on the steps of the lighthouse, taking some respite in the shade, while he watched Silva sit by the rocks, a coconut grasped in his hands; his fingers tapped on its green, pulpy shell lightly as if they were trying to feel where it would give in more easily when he smashed it down to crack it open - it would have been a lie to say that James didn’t wish to do exactly the same with the other’s head, driving it against the rocks again and again until he heard the sickening wet sound of the skull caving in and the sea foam was tinted a light pink with blood and cerebral matter. He would have done it already too, if he hadn’t been as weak as he was; James had been in enough dire situations to recognise when his body could get him out of them and when it just couldn’t fight back - as things were, if he attacked Silva, he would be the one easily overpowered and murdered.

For some reason that James still hadn’t been able to grasp, Silva didn’t really seem inclined to do away with him yet and while James wasn’t a fan of the waiting game (no matter how many times he had had to play it during his career, for the sake of the mission), he knew it wasn’t smart to trigger an homicidal response in the other man. No, the smart thing to do was to take advantage of the food and the meds that were at his disposal and wait until his body strengthened up again, so that he could take Silva over and finally killing the man once and for all.

Not that he seemed to be a danger nowadays: James hadn’t even spotted a piece of technology besides the clunky satellite phone the other man used to presumably communicate with the mainland or a bigger island when he needed supplies or had to rely any critical emergency - it didn’t mean that he couldn’t have had a laptop stashed somewhere though and it wouldn’t be the first time Silva set up shop on an island, which meant the man could easily circumnavigate any obstacles that would make it difficult to get a stable connection out there, in the middle of the ocean.

The coconut broke with one well-aimed throw.

James watched as Silva expertly turned it upwards as quick as lightning, clearly trying to preserve as much of the water as he could; he wasn’t sure whether all the water he saw bottled up in the pantry were the results of trips to the heart of the island, where there was some kind of fresh water source, or whether they were supplied to him regularly by someone who hadn’t forgotten yet about the lighthouse keeper - he just knew that Silva was parsimonious with it and that he collected the coconut water religiously, as if he was afraid of being left without a source of hydration.

Or maybe, like the agent he had once been, he was just being paranoid and preferred being ready for any and all emergencies rather than later finding himself in a situation he didn’t have a contingency plan for.

James knew that, if he had been living alone on an island, he would have done exactly the same and yes, the thought of being anything like the other man still annoyed him: it made him feel like there was something crawling just beneath the surface of the skin - a darkness that was waiting for him to fall with its maws open, salivating.

All that it would take was one bad day.

“Come on in, breakfast is ready”

“Coconut again, yeah”

“Don’t spit on the majestic coconut, Bond: it does more for you than all the drinks you used to have all the day long”

“I’m not spitting on it” James rolled his eyes as he followed Silva back in the lighthouse, shoulders sagging with relief at the slightly cooler temperature that helped him forget for a second that he still was wearing his ruined suit, stiff with salt and far too heavy for the weather; Silva had offered him a change of clothes but James had refused, a part of his brain stupidly terrified at the mere idea of literally seeing himself in the man’s shoes - it was the kind of image that would bring on the sort of self-reflection that James tried to keep at bay as much as he could: it wouldn’t do to let mind wander dangerously when he already was vulnerable enough.

* * *

Raoul shifted uncomfortably on the chair he kept propped up in the gallery, so that he could look out at the sea and the beach for hours on end without having to sit on the hard wooden floor, its grain roughened by years and years of exposure to the salt and the wind - concrete would have been far better but he supposed that, whoever had built the lighthouse in the first place, had thought that its guardian might appreciate something that felt somehow homelier without thinking about how much of a bitch it would be to upkeep. Or maybe they had thought about that and had decided that it wouldn’t be so bad to give the guardian something to care about to ward off the boredom.

He sighed and reached up to cradle his face, fingers carefully prodding at the edges of the old prosthetic that he could clearly feel beneath his flesh; he should have changed it a long time ago, the plastic was worn by decade of use and keeping it in hurt more than not having it did. Raoul usually took it out to sleep every single night and on days when the pain was particularly bad, rather than the dull ache that always pervaded his ruined face, he didn’t wear it at all since it wasn’t like he had regular company on the island but now that Bond had seemingly become a semi permanent fixture in his life, Raoul hadn’t taken it out even once and it was beginning to take its toll.

An headache had started to settle like a burning circle around his temples, making him all the more sensitive to the harsh sunlight and any other chronic pain he carried with him, almost as if it made those small inflamed clusters stand out even more. Raoul had been soldiering through it for days by now, trying to distract himself with inane activities such as fishing, collecting jellyfishes and coconuts, braiding fishnets, making an inventory of anything he would need to order from the main island… all the while keeping an eye on Bond, whose crystal clear blue eyes followed him like those of a bird of prey.

Not even the excitement of sharing the field with another predator once again was enough to distract him from the agony his body was slowly sinking in.

It wouldn’t do: Raoul was well aware that the only reason why Bond hadn’t tried to smother him yet in his sleep was that the man knew it wouldn’t end up well for him, he couldn’t afford losing that advantage.

Besides, it wasn’t like Bond hadn’t seen his without the prosthetics yet.

Still, there was a part of his brain that recoiled at the idea of the agent seeing his caved in face eaten away at by the cyanide in broad daylight, as he went about his daily life; when the man had seen him taking out the prosthetic, it had been in one of MI6 glass cells and he had been intruding in a moment that was supposed to be just his and Olivia’s: Raoul hadn’t had any intentions of showing off to Bond the damage he carried with him, his stomach roiling thickly with nausea at the mere idea of the man pitying him for what he had done to himself in his last, desperate cowardly attempt at getting away from the hands that hadn’t relented in their torturing - not for a day, not for an hour, not for a minute.

However, it didn’t look like he had much choice.

Raoul sighed as he prodded his cheek again, trying to understand if the slight swelling he could feel beneath the flesh was because of the inflamed sores that the plastic had worked into his face or the first sign of an inflamed nerve ending which would be a lot worse to treat, considering the limited supplies of his first aid kit.

He sent a last glance out at the beach, checking that Bond still was loitering at the edge of the forest; he wasn’t really sure what he was looking for, maybe a snake or a bird just to have meat instead of fish for dinner, but he wasn’t particularly worried about it: anything dangerous - weapons, computers, his speedboat - were carefully stashed away, he wouldn’t be able to find them even if he spent the rest of his life there with him.

Raoul conveniently ignored how that perspective was less upsetting than he would have ever imagined it to be.

Instead, he heaved himself out of the chair and went downstairs in the living quarters, his face still cradled in the palm of his hand even if the contact wasn’t giving him that much comfort. He grabbed all the supplied he needed - fresh and saltwater, disinfectant and painkillers - and settled himself in front of the basin, trying to gather the strength to take the prosthetic out with the thought that he would at least feel marginally better once its edges weren’t digging in the flesh anymore.

He had endured far worse anyway.

The reminder didn’t keep the tears at bay and Raoul was so much more grateful of the fact that Bond seemed to want to stay as far away from him as possible during the day, granting him the privacy he needed in that very moment as a mix of sweat, tears and bloody saliva dripped on his chin while the prosthetic slid out slowly and painfully.

It immediately brought his mind back to a dank and obscure cell, smelling of piss and shit, rank with his own bodily fluids infused with fear and exhaustion; everytime he thought he had moved on from his captivity, his brain reminded him that every single detail, from the heavy smell on his breath because of the lack of basic dental hygiene to the mustiness of the towel put down to block his airways when they started waterboarding him, was forever burned in his memory - it would never fade, no matter how much beauty he experienced in his life.

Raoul let out a pained groan as he let the prosthetic momentarily fall in the basin, disgusted by the sight of the pink saliva coating it, and took a swig straight from the saltwater bottle even if he knew it would burn like fire against the open and oozing sores; it wasn’t as bad as the cyanide - not even fire itself felt as bad to him and he tightened his fists on the edge of the counter as he forced himself to swirl the water around in his mouth before spitting. He repeated the operation another couple of times, the burning sensation slowly subduing as the salt finally started working on the sores, cauterizing the bleeding flesh until the water he spat came out almost clean -  _ almost _ .

He really had pushed himself too far.

A heavy sigh escaped his lips as he tore the cotton into balls to soak in the disinfectant, glad that there wasn’t a mirror in front of him, taunting him with the sight of his ruined and droopy face, the flesh looking like a one those melted clocks that were supposed to represent the inevitable slow passage of time - Raoul had never been able to look at one again without thinking of the acid biting into his flesh, consuming him way faster than time ever could.

“There is a boat speeding by”

He should have been able to hear the other’s voice - he would have, if he hadn’t been too absorbed by the pounding and thumping ache that had taken over his whole face; immediately, Raoul reached up and covered the offended half, making sure he didn’t really touch the already burning skin “Out”

James frowned, brain slowly elaborating the metallic smell that had greeted him as blood “What the he-”

“Out, Bond. Now”

Had he been any good at following orders, James would have been retired by now, sitting in some tea parlour, drinking Earl Grey while he read the newspaper, enjoying his hard-earned pension instead of being stranded on some half-deserted island in the middle of the Caribbeans, trapped with a man he had thought long dead and decomposed at the bottom of a frozen little lake in the moors.

Had he been any good at following orders, James wouldn’t have been half of the agent he was today.

Had he been any good at following orders, he would have turned around on his heels and he would have walked out of the lighthouse because why would he even care if the other man was injured? It was better for him if he died of natural causes, so that when he took his satellite phone to call for help he wouldn’t need any excuses to explain why exactly the guardian of the lighthouse himself wasn’t available - or even alive, once they finally came around to get him off of that goddamned island. He didn’t know how many years Silva had already spent there but no matter the number, James couldn’t really understand how the man hadn’t gone insane yet - well, more insane than he already was.

“You’re injured”

_ Mierda _ .

Bond wasn’t a rat: he was a shark, considered the ease with which he seemed to smell blood in the air even when it was overpowered by the scents of salt and disinfectant “I fucking told you to get out!  _ Fuera _ !” couldn’t a man lick his own wounds in peace? Raoul just wanted to stick the cotton balls in his mouth and lie down for a little while, hoping that the painkillers would knock him out long enough for the nap to actually help him feel better rather than just groggy.

“No”

Oh, how irritating.

Raoul finally turned around; he knew that, despite the fact he was trying to cover himself up as much as possible, Bond would immediately notice the telltale droopiness around his eye socket that belied the fact there really wasn’t much bone structure leftover to speak of anymore “For once in your life, can you please just do what you’re told?”

James blinked, quickly piecing together the few hints he had “Still?”

He couldn’t believe that Bond really wanted to have a conversation while half of his face was falling off when he could have struck up one literally anytime in the past few days “You want me to believe that your balls don’t ache anymore?”

The reminder made James grimace as he fought the instinct to reach down and touch himself, to tenderly prod at the delicate flesh that had been abused again and again by Le Chiffre’s knotted rope “Harsh”

“But true”

“Your accent is thicker when you’re angry or in pain”

“ _ Vete a la mierda _ ”

“You’re just proving my point”

“That was real Spanish, not an accent” Raoul hissed, only to regret it when a sharp stab of pain shoot up his brain, pushing out a tear that had gathered at the corner of his eye; he felt it slide down his cheek, as simmering as shame “Just… leave me alone”

“Let me do it”

“What?”

It was too late to go back on what his brain had decided to blurt out so, James just jutted out his chin in a manner that dared Silva to tease him “Let me do it, you’re just going to injure yourself further without a mirror to help”

“I think I know where it hurts”

“You  _ think _ you do but maybe you don’t”

Raoul blinked, brain struggling to believe that Bond really would say something so monumentally stupid “You’re… out of your mind”

“Clearly” James wiggled his fingers in a demanding manner “Come on”

For some weird reason, he handed the cotton balls over as he let the hand fall away from his face, feeling bared like he hadn’t felt in a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, you're not going insane: I added one chapter to the total


	3. The Cave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fills the "Cave" prompt for the Angst Prompt Table (only one to go yeay!)

_The Cave_

Raoul should have known that the brief, strange truce that had come to life a few afternoon prior would shatter into a million pieces at the barest of nudges: they were natural enemies, two faces of the same coin forever separated by the ghost of a woman they had both been devoted to - who couldn’t really stand the knowledge that they were more similar to one another than they liked to think.

Still, the past few days had made Raoul think that things were shifting - slowly but surely, in a direction that he wasn’t even sure he wanted them to go in but he had been willing to wait it out, to see how their relationship unfolded under the hot sun that blurred away the edges of an old animosity. Instead of just sharing space for tense meals and even more tense nights, they had been spending more and more time together - most of it quietly as they went fishing, snoozed on the beach, went looking for fruits and vegetables in the forest; James had even managed to kill a couple of snakes and despite the fact their meat was kind of stringy, the other man had eaten it with a satisfaction that had made Raoul feel… _warm_.

It was a reaction he had decided not to examine too closely.

It probably was just his body’s fault anyway, responding excitedly at the idea of another body besides his own being close enough to touch, to feel, to lick and kiss and scratch - yes, he probably was just horny: afterall, it had been a long while since the last time he had had anyone else besides his hand alone to take the edge off and bring him any pleasure. 

Raoul had always found the other man attractive, his theory really wasn’t too far-fetched considering that most often than not Bond gallivated around just in his boxer briefs, his toned and scarred body a feast for the eyes that Raoul never really tired of, not even when it made him uncomfortably hard as he tried to procure them dinner or he washed the few clothes he owned and himself in the little stream at the heart of the island.

He sighed: things definitely had been way too peaceful between them, especially if one remembered their less than happy shared history and it was on himself alone, the way he had let his barriers down - he should have known better than to relax around a predator.

He should have known that he would have gotten bitten.

It was a miracle he hadn’t gotten mauled.

Raoul’s hand absentmindedly cupped the thick wad of gauzes that padded his side beneath the shirt, clinging onto his lower rib cage thanks to a generous use of medical tape; he could still feel the blunt point of the kitchen knife pressing into his flesh, slowly sinking down into his body while light blue eyes stared up at him - cold and deadly.

* * *

James wasn’t hiding out in the cave that he had found almost at the beginning of his stay in the island, seemingly kitted out for human permanence if the blankets, the half-empty bottle of water and the ashy remains of a fire were anything to go by - did Silva like to camp out in there? It really didn’t make much sense, considering the fact that he could have camped anywhere on the beach, much closer to the lighthouse where he was supposed to stay anyway because it was his fucking job… not that Silva not being dependable should really have been a surprise: the man was a traitor, afterall, and it didn’t really matter why he had turned - just that he had.

James wasn’t hiding out in the cave.

No, he was… regrouping. Assessing the situation. Thinking up plans.

He just couldn’t stay in the lighthouse when he had attacked Silva, especially now that he had lost the only, shitty weapon he had. Gathering sharp rocks to throw at the man’s head was all fine and dandy, but they wouldn’t do shit if Silva came looking for him with a gun in his hand - which was the main reason why he should move out of the cave soon and find refuge in the thick wilderness of the forest; despite the island being Silva’s home, the man couldn’t know every nook and cranny of it, even him would get disorientated looking around for him in the labyrinthine green heart of the island. It wasn’t ideal, of course: the forest wouldn’t offer him as much shelter from the weather as the cave did and it was rife with all kinds of dangerous flora and fauna but what was he supposed to do?

_He shouldn’t have stabbed him_.

James grimaced at the thought, hating that it resonated loud and true in his skull.

The action hadn’t even been voluntary: Silva had surprised him in the middle of sleep and James’ instinctive reaction had been to stab the man where he would get more chances of getting to the heart and hopefully killing the man, even if he hadn’t thought about doing away with the man in days.

He supposed he could have stayed behind and explained himself but why would words be enough to make Silva forget that he had tried to stab him? surely the other man was just as wary of him as James was of Silva and what had happened could only have strengthened in the other the feeling that sharing space wasn’t smart - that one of them would end up dead soon enough and James was sure that Silva didn’t want to be the one who ended up a corpse bobbing on the waves, slowly bloating with water while his rotting flesh was eaten away at by whatever lurked in the tropical sea, eagerly awaiting for an easy meal they could pick at without fear of their food turning on them with malicious intentions.

James didn’t want that fate for himself either.

It seemed quite inescapable, though.

Just like in Silva’s little tale about how his grandmother had freed a whole island from rats, they were the only two ones left and after decades of preying on their similes, they were bound to turn onto each other in one last, cannibalistic meal.

* * *

The rain fell loudly and so thick that all James could see when he looked out of the cave was a grey slate of water falling down from even grayer skies, so dark and livid that it made him hope against hope that an hurricane wasn’t going to hurl itself at the little archipelagus he had gotten stranded on; the cave was already starting to flood with rain water and James knew that if the sea rose, which it inevitably would since the wind was picking up speed and strength, he would be forced out and into the bad weather.

There was only one place in the whole island that could guarantee his safety and that was the lighthouse.

James tightened the blanket around his shoulders, trying to ignore the humidity that was making his whole body ache with new and old injuries; in his current state, dehydrated and famished for the lack of regular meals and easily reachable fresh water, James knew his body had weakened again after his near-drowning and even if he wanted to try to kill Silva in order to get the shelter of the lighthouse for himself alone, he wouldn’t be able to take on the other man and survive it.

Perhaps there was another safe cranny in the forest but it would be stupid to leave the cave without the certainty of finding it relatively quickly - just as it would be stupid to stay in the cave for much longer, waiting to die drowned amidst its walls of stone. 

James had always hated finding himself trapped between the hammer and the anvil, his only option to wait and see how quickly he would be crushed; he had been lucky up to that moment but it seemed that upon his crashing on that cursed shore, Lady Luck had turned her unseeing eyes away from him and left him to fend for himself in an almost impossible situation. There were only a couple of ideas that fluttered around his mind, ranging from attempting to kill Silva or seducing the man at the risk of his own life - not that he thought Silva would let himself be so easily seduced; sure, the other man hadn’t made a mystery out of the fact he found him attractive and his exploratory gazes weren’t as subtle as Silva probably hoped them to be but still, he was far from naive enough to fall for a honeypot trick that he had undoubtedly pulled himself many times.

“James!”

Either he was going mad - a possibility that the agent was never really that quick to rule out, not after the life he had lived and the things he had gone through - and he was starting to hear voices or there really was someone out in that horrible weather, getting soaked down to the marrow amidst the beginning of a hurricane.

“James! Are you in there?”

There was only one other living soul on the island and James couldn’t fathom why he would get out of his safe place to do what - get him out of the bad weather after he had almost stabbed him to death? It really seemed that it had come the time for his mind to break under the pressure, weakened by far too many near-death experiences one after the other - it had endured a lot but he still was only human and like any other person in the world, James knew he had a breaking point too: he just had never imagined he would get to it on a semi-deserted island.

“James?!”

If he was imagining the voice in the first place, James was imagining a desperate edge to it that he had never actually heard coming from the man’s lips - not even as Skyfall had been burning around them, their airways inflamed by acrid smoke and thick ashes, sliding almost oily into their lungs were they would deposit, malignant as the silent cancer one day they could develop into.

Still, James picked up a stone and held it tight in his hand: maybe he wasn’t hallucinating afterall, even if it really didn’t make sense that the other man would come to murder him when he could wait for the weather to do the job for him.

James had never claimed not to be paranoid. 

He tightened his eyes, scrutinizing the mouth of the cave - was there something… yellow and vaguely human shaped approaching, appearing here and there amidst the sheets of rain? 

Raoul tried to ignore the way his heart was pounding in his chest, now that wasn't really the moment to interrogate himself on why exactly the idea of Bond being possibly in danger was evoking such a visceral reaction in the depths of his body; for now, his priority was ensuring he found the other man before the hurricane swept him away - taking away from him what the sea had brought in offering. 

Raoul hurried into the cave, pushing back the dripping hood of the bright yellow parka he was wearing, blinking fast to get out of his lashes the drops of rain so that he could focus on whatever he would find inside "James?"

"Silva?"

He pushed down the relief that was threatening to choke him "Come" Raoul encouraged, his hand outstretched in a welcoming manner even as his eyes focused on the stone James was holding on to with bruising force, his knuckles bleeding out white with the strength of his grip "Come, let's get back home. It's too dangerous outside"

"I stabbed you"

"Si, I was there for it"

"Why, then?"

"I don't know and this is not really the time for that kind of talk, James: in case you haven't noticed, there is a hurricane closing in on us" Raoul pointed out, unable to keep the snark and the annoyance out of his voice "Come. Now"

And, for some reason, James let the stone clutter to the floor - accepting that hand outstretched in offer. 

What had the world come to?

  
  



	4. Quiet

_Quiet_

James wasn’t sure when, in the middle of the hurricane, they had huddled close on the thin bed as if to make themselves even smaller targets despite the fact that they were perfectly safe behind the thick walls of the lighthouse; the tower had been built to last in spite of the anger of the sea, the salt and the constant erosion of the waves, coming and going with their endless caresses - it certainly wouldn’t fall because of a hurricane.

Of course, they could feel the trembling of the stone and the whistling of the winds and the seemingly endless beating down of the rain but there wasn’t even a hint of swaying, of structural weakness: they stood strong and tall in the middle of the tempest in what probably was one of the safest places in the archipelagus.

Well, if one excluded the fact that two men who knew more than a hundred ways to kill another human being were trapped inside; however, against all odds, they weren’t itching to get at each other’s throats: it was as if the anger and brute force of nature had lulled the one dwelling in their hearts to sleep, leaving them quiet and calm as they huddled for warmth beneath thin woolen blankets and waited for the sun to come shining again - an odd oasis of quiet, an eye of the hurricane of their own.

James moved a little, disturbed when Silva got up from the bed, dislodging him in the process; it had turned out that, unlike him, the other man seemed a lot less good when it came to just… be. It was as if Silva was pervaded by a nervous energy that ran like low voltage electric current in his veins and that James thought he could feel crackling and sizzling on the surface of his skin whenever their shoulders bumped together or Silva’s thigh came to rest against his own as they slept the hours away.

“Are you hungry?”

Not really but it wasn’t like there was much to do locked up in a lighthouse besides eating, napping and reading the few books the other man had around; James was still surprised that Silva hadn’t given in and broken out the laptop James was sure he kept stashed away somewhere “I could eat”

Raoul let out a small noise of understanding, rummaging around the few cabinets the lighthouse had come furnished with; at some point, Raoul had promised himself that he would improve the living space, sprucing it up a bit and making it more homely and comfortable but with time, its bare-essentials philosophy had grown on him and as long as he had enough space to store all of his belongings and provisions so that there wouldn’t be any mess around, Raoul was quite happy with the overall state of the living quarters.

He had lived in far worse places.

He started humming as he gathered all the necessary to prepare a meal, something hearty and warm; it wasn’t exactly _cold_ but it wasn’t really hot either and the weather was the kind that made on wish for a soup and tea rather than for a salad or something equally fresh. Raoul lined up cans and spices, brain lazily taking in the variety of ingredients at his disposal so that it could think up a recipe; the time to ration their food hadn’t come yet but if the hurricane lasted for much longer, they would need to start being more careful about what they hate and how much of it - thankfully, the constant rain at least ensured that they wouldn’t be running out of freshwater any time soon and, in the end, that was the main thing that they needed to be abundant and on hand.

Food was secondary.

Though, Raoul really hoped it wouldn’t come to rationing: food might not have been necessary for their immediate survival but it was undeniable that the fact they both had full bellies everyday helped to quell animosity and it was definitely making their cohabitation easier - Raoul didn’t really want to have the delicate balance they had settled in upset, not even by something as ridiculously easy as reducing their food portions.

Well, easy for them: they were used to depriving themselves, they had been trained for it, but that didn’t mean that it still could hit hard, especially when one wasn’t really psychologically prepared for it and Raoul knew that neither of them really was, as unsettled as they were by one another sudden presence in each other’s lives.

“What are you making?”

“Soup”

“What kind?” James asked, sitting up a little straighter against the wall “Can I make myself useful?”

“Tomato soup with a few herbs to keep it interesting” Raoul wished he had anything more exciting than saltines to go with it but making bread would take far too long and he didn’t want to start consuming the reserves of flour yet, which could come in handy for making fresh pasta in big quantities if they ever started running out of something “You can watch the fry of garlic, onions and carrots while I mash the canned tomatoes” he proposed, trying not to feel too warm at the idea that the other man actively wanted to spend some time doing an activity with him - he probably just was bored out of his mind and Raoul couldn’t really blame him for it.

Still when their elbows rubbed together as they worked at the small kitchen counter and Bond picked up on the tune he was humming, joining him with his voice, Raoul couldn’t help the way his heart swelled in his chest.

Oh, he was such a fool.

* * *

James wouldn’t have been able to ignore the pained grunt that came from the other side of the room even if he still had been keeping his eyes and ears open for the best opportunity to kill Silva and get out of there alive; it hadn’t been particularly loud - on the contrary, it sounded like Silva had tried to muffle it as much as possible and even then, it had sounded full of an anguish that James was a little too familiar with. He was sure that if he still hadn’t been all achy because of his misadventure, he would have easily been able to pick out the pain of old injuries flaring up here and there - as things were, James had grown too used to his body constantly hurting as of late that his brain didn’t even register any peaks in the levels of pain he was in.

Evidently, the same couldn’t be said for Silva.

The room was pitch black and not even squinting James could make out the shape of the other’s body but he knew he was there, he could hear the subtle noises coming from the busted bed as Silva moved around on it and those of his laboured breathing.

James didn’t really know what to do: if it had been him in the other’s shoes, he probably would have preferred it if he was ignored instead of coddled but Silva wasn’t him and to be fair, James hadn’t quite the intention of coddling the other man, he merely wanted to offer him a glass of water and whatever painkillers there were stashed away in the first aid kit - still, it was a difficult decision to make. What if Silva reacted badly at the idea of being vulnerable in front of him? Sure, before the hurricane had struck, Silva had let him help with the medication of the sores inside his mouth, derived from the constant wear of the far too old prosthetic but that had also been before James had attempted to stab the man.

No matter the fact that Silva had come to retrieve him from the cave after the attack, the man’s mood could have been a lot more different and in the dark, while in a pain excruciating enough that the other hadn’t been able to keep it under wraps, the probability that he would lash out violently was higher.

James sighed low and intimate in his pillow while he tried to figure out the right course of action: on the one hand, he didn’t really understand the sudden desire to help Silva out after all the man had put him through back in London but one the other one, he was also aware of the fact that he owed him.

Sort of.

Maybe.

He sighed again, this time charged with even more annoyance that was turned both at himself and Silva; when he had washed up on the island, James would have paid good money for such an evident display of weakness he could take advantage of to get out of there alive - now, his mind wasn’t even entertaining the idea.

If he was honest with himself, it was a tad worrying and the kind of situation that required him to do some soul searching but James had never really been comfortable with looking too deeply inside himself, let alone without a glass or two of something highly alcoholic to ease the perscrutation of the depths of his heart.

"Are you in pain?" James asked blurted out, feeling rather stupid: it was obvious that the other was in pain but maybe Silva would appreciate the opportunity to deny it, giving James a hint about what he should do next. 

Raoul froze in his bed at the question, hand pressing down so hard against his own face that the pain heightened to the point of numbness; he knew he hadn't been very quiet but he had thought Bond was asleep, blissfully unaware of the pain he was in. Raoul swallowed, even if the movement of his facial muscles and of his half ruined esophagus hurt like hell "I.." the hesitance in his voice probably was already telling in itself "Si" he admitted with a heavy sigh. 

"Do you want me to grab you a painkiller?"

Raoul frowned, comforted by the fact that the other man couldn't see him in the dark - that he couldn't see the turmoil that he knew had taken over his features. 

Why did the other man want to help?

And, more importantly, why did Raoul want to be helped?

It wasn't in his nature to trust someone with his pain but there was something about Bond that tore down all of his defences, that allowed the man to get straight to the heart of his vulnerabilities - it was unnerving.

"Please"

James nodded and he turned on the small flashlight he kept under his pillow "Water?" 

"No"

"Are you sure?" James asked as he turned on the main light and went to locate the first aid kit that he had become quite acquainted with during his convalescence.

"The pain makes me nauseous"

"Fair" he nodded, just shaking a couple of oxycodones in his hand "Your face?"

"Amongst other things" Raoul sighed as he sat up, eyes half closed as they still got used to the light suddenly flooding the room; it wasn't particularly harsh and bright but the pain that enveloped his entire face made his eyes particularly sensitive to any kind of light - still, he wasn't going to complain about it: he appreciated the fact alone that Bond was willing to help him. 

Raoul reached out with his hand, palm up to happily receive the offering. He wasn't looking forward to swallowing them dry but it was better enduring the brief discomfort of the pills sticking to his esophagus rather than battling with the water swimming in his empty stomach, further diluting his gastric fluids and making his nausea even stronger - unbearable. 

"Is there any other way I can help?"

Raoul shook his head, swallowing painfully "Not really" 

James stood in front of him, feeling helpless at the sight of the other's face contorted in pain and distorted by the lack of the prosthetic - a ruin that spoke of a fallen empire. 

He shook himself out of his stupor, well aware that staring wasn’t exactly nice and sat by the other’s side, one hand clasping his shoulder and squeezing it softly, almost kneading the tense muscles there “Let’s go to sleep, hm?”

“The light-”

“-I’ll turn it off” he reassured.

When he went back to bed, James slipped behind Silva and for the nth reason he had no intentions of exploring too deeply, he kissed the offended side of the other’s face - featherlight, tender, unexpected.

Fearful of what dawn would bring, even as Silva squirmed closer to him with a shiver: for now, they would hold onto their quiet in the middle of the hurricane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this fic, I really appreciate every single one of you whether you left kudos, commented, bookmarked or were a silent reader! <3


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